I’m back, or at least, I mean to be back. For anyone curious as to the long silence, check out the latest project.
Traipsed down to Portland last weekend; Grandpa is 83. Dinner came to a sudden end, all of us stampeding for the door when my cousin’s husband received a phone call. The information was inaccurate at best; the mountain wasn’t erupting. Ian and I had stopped to see Mount St. Helens on our way south. The mountain seemed smug. . . All these people lining the highway, waiting for it to perform, and it refusing to step on stage. Not even a whisper of steam. The clear spots along the road were populated by lawn chairs, tripods, cameras, telescopes. Small children …
This is my first complete deciduous autumn (we arrived in the middle of fall, after the leaves had begun to turn, when we were in Germany). The hawthorn trees in our front yard are whispering secrets, chattering softly to each other as their leaves flutter down, patchwork on the lawn. The berries linger, outlining the limbs in a fierce red. Every few days, an army of small birds moves in, trilling to the dying year. I have a vague memory of a comic strip: something startles a tree, and it drops all of its leaves at once. My redwoods growing …
As I told Jay, yes, yes, I know. It’s not March anymore. And it’s not like nothing’s happened in the last six months, either. We’ve left Kauai, moved to Seattle (yes, moved, as in all our stuff out of storage – finally, all our earthly possessions are in one state, if not the same address), been involved in two weddings, made our first experiments in growing tomatoes, and otherwise returned to a life not on hiatus. Upheaval does tend to upset whatever vague notions of routine I once had. I’m out of habit, in many things, and struggling to rediscover …
Recent happenings… Just finished re-reading Patrick O’Leary’s The Gift, quite possibly my most favorite book… Still trying to decide what to say about Barbara Kingsolver’s latest essay collection, Small Wonder. She says everything I wish I could say, and better than I could hope to… The pictures from our excursion to the National Botanical Garden are back, and I have lots to upload if only I could find the time… Finally made it out to Tunnels. I found it less then it’s cracked up to be since I spent all my time fighting a current and seeing nothing. Ian, on …
Welcome to March. Our time in Kauai runs thin. . . Detoured to the beach on the way to meet some of Ian’s teammates for dinner last week. We were early, and my Monday had been a Monday and Tuesday all rolled together. Spending time with the ocean is therapy for crazy days. (How do people who live in Kansas manage??) We waded into the surf a short ways before being distracted by a dark shape in the waves breaking on the reef edge. Patience revealed the shape to be two sea turtles swimming close to shore, surfing down the …